Speaker profiles:

C.K. (Bablu) Ganguly started working in rural Andhra Pradesh in the late seventies motivated by the call of Jayaprakash Narayan. Since then he has been involved with human rights issues (especially economic, social, cultural and environmental) of agricultural laborers, marginal peasants, women and children. Over the last decade, his work and personal orientation has moved from direct political action and agitation politics to one of building ecological and food security for the communities that he lives with and to nurture a constructive politics of dissent.

Bablu’s early years as a political and theater activist brought him in contact with the knowledge and wisdom present in the rural communities he was working with. This made him question the paradigm of modern development, leading to the realization of the need to work with communities directly to develop viable solutions.

Towards this end, Bablu co-founded the Timbaktu Collective in 1990 in the drought-prone region of Ananthapur District, Andhra Pradesh. Timbaktu has helped foster efforts to strengthen the natural resource base on which most people of Anantapur district still depend. Today, the Collective organizes people in 130 villages in Ananthapur District to address issues of environmental sustainability (reforestation, watershed management), education, women's rights, livelihood generation activities and organic farming.

The Collective has helped 8 villages to take control of about 10,000 contiguous acres of common lands and comprehensively regenerate it into a forest, revitalize their common traditional water harvesting structures and 4,000 acres of marginalized agricultural land. Bablu was awarded the Ashoka fellowship in 1993 for his work in regenerating and reforesting the common lands.

Timbaktu’s education program addresses child rights through a three-pronged approach - the right to childhood, organizing children so they have a platform to express themselves and working with children having disabilities. They run a residential school for children from the neighboring villages, many of who are from broken homes. They also run a day school that provides high quality education to underprivileged children. These are efforts that Asha has been involved with for the last 14 years.

The organic farming initiative, Timbaktu Organic, which started 4 years back, works with over 400 farmers today. A venture based on socially responsible investment, it is a farmer owned co-operative that is revitalizing the cultivation of local crops like millets. Asha's support through Work An Hour called 'Seeds of Hope' helped the program in its early stages.

Bablu continues to be the Chairperson of Timbaktu and provides leadership and vision to its activities.

Asha Project: http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=204
Timbaktu Collective: Webpage
Timbaktu Organic: Webpage

Sankurathri story is one of tragedy, hope and compassion. The founder of the school, Dr. Chandrasekhar, a scientist from Toronto, Canada, lost his wife and two children in the 1985 bombing of the Air India flight Kanishka. Reeling from his loss, he left his well-paying job and moved to the rural area in Andhra Pradesh where his wife grew up. There, he witnessed first hand, the plight of the children in the struggling village.

The government schools in the area were in appalling conditions, the literacy rate was barely ten percent and the children were more likely to work in the fields than go to school. He also noticed the rampant blindness prevalent in the area, mainly due to cataract problems. That was when Dr. Chandrasekhar resolved to create a primary school to provide basic education for the children of the nearby villages and also to build an eye hospital.

Since the hospital's opening in 1993, more than 137,000 cataract operations have been performed, 90 percent of which are free. The school provides children with a free education, books, lunch, uniforms, basic healthcare, and bus transportation for students outside of walking distance. Almost every single student who has entered the school has successfully completed 7th grade and passed the state exam with first class. Some of the first graduates are now even considering higher education.

Dr. Chandra has been nominated as a CNN hero in 2008 for his work.

Project supported by Asha. http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=281.

M.R.Mamatha is an Educationist and a Development Practitioner, currently Chief Counsellor at Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, a non-profit organisation focused on grassroots action in Health, Education and Community Development. (SVYM)

Her main focus has been Education Development and Mangement and Community-Mobilisation towards Education, in conjunction with the State Goverment. Gaining over 14 years of field level expertise in Education amongst tribal and rural youth, M. R. Mamatha has worked in the capacities of Expert Advisor, Community Manager, Program Manager, Resource Faculty in organisations like Association of India's Development, Asha for Education, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan in Government of Karnataka and REACH India (USAID).

She has headed projects such as ShikshanaVahini (an educational NGO-Government partnership program) and the Viveka Residential Tribal Center for Learning in Karnataka. This is a project of the Silicon Valley chapter of Asha. M.R. Mamatha has also worked in the field of women empowerment, as program manager of the Federation of Womens' Self Help Groups (Prakruti Mahila Okkuta) focusing on promotion of Micro-credit activities and enterprises and evaluation of Sustainability of Self Help Groups.

She is the receipient of the National Youth Award (1999), the SwarnaJayanthi Samman for Education of the Tribal Youth (1998) and the S D Jayaraman Award for Social Service (2001). She is a Science graduate and has a Masters in Physical and Analytical Chemistry from Mysore University and a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy from Kuvempu University. Besides English, she is fluent in Kannada, the local language of the state Karnataka in India, where she resides.

Web Links: Video on education intervention plan.

Madan Vasishta received his B.A., M.A. (in Deaf Education, '73), and Ph.D. (in Special Education Administration, '83) from Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. Vasishta has worked as a teacher, supervisor, program evaluator, principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent in several schools for the deaf around the United States, and retired as the superintendent of New Mexico School for the Deaf in 2000. Currently, he is working part time at Gallaudet as an associate professor in the Department of Administration and Supervision.

Vasishta's story is one of self-propelled determination and achievement, one that everyone can draw immense inspiration from. In 1952, after two weeks of typhoid fever and the mumps, 11-year-old Vasishta awoke one night to discover that he was totally deaf. He was horrified because in India, the word for "deaf" in all three languages, Punjabi, Urdu, and Hindi, denoted someone who was not really human. In his book "Deaf in Delhi: A Memoir," he shares his first hand experiences from growing as a "special needs learner" in India, and reveals how his boundless optimism enabled him to persist and prevail. Vasishta says he wrote the book because he knows of many deaf people in India who have very little hope for their futures -- “Growing up, I never met another deaf person until I was well into my 20s. That is a concept I find difficult to grasp."

Vasishta went on to become the first deaf Indian to receive a Ph.D. degree, and has also authored a few books on Indian sign language. Today, in addition to teaching and writing, he continues to remain passionate about the needs of millions of neglected special needs children in India. He is currently working on the second volume of his memoirs and a historical novel. He also closely works, in India, with the National Association for the Deaf, the All India Federation of the Deaf and several other organizations, as well as government departments.

Web Links: Profile on Gallaudet University website

Book: Deaf in Delhi: A Memoir. Washington, DC. Gallaudet University Press. 2006

Dr. Balaji Sampath, is a central figure in AID. He has made several vital contributions in planning and executing large-scale campaigns in health, literacy and improving quality of education in India. His work has culminated in the Hundred Block Plan (HBP), a multi-pronged rural intervention and development program across India - which he pioneered with the All-India People's Science Network (AIPSN). More recently, he has played a key role in AID India's large scale primary education program, the Eureka Child initiative, which reaches out to 1 million children in Tamil Nadu to improve reading, math and science skills.

Dr. Sampath is a graduate of IIT-Chennai where he had stood All India No. 4 in the Joint Entrance Examination. He received his doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park's Electrical Engineering program in 1997. At graduate school Dr. Sampath became a volunteer for AID-College park when AID was still a local organization. As a graduate student, he mobilized 500 volunteers and started 25 chapters of Association for India's Development in the USA.

Dr. Sampath returned to India and started working fulltime on social issues in 1997 and founded AID India. He worked with Center for Ecology and Rural Development and the People's Science Movement on various health and education programs. He was also a National Organizer of the People's Health Assembly Campaign in 2000.

Dr. Sampath is a recipient several awards for AID India's work in reading and science education - Ashoka Fellowship, MIT Lemelson Innovator's Award, Rotary Distinguished Service Award. He also demonstrates a popular weekly science program for children on TV. Dr. Sampath is an author of several books and videos on education, science popularization and health.